Awkward design details on production cars

[ajprice]

The tiny tiny piece of glass behind the rear doorhandles on the current Clio. With the edges being blacked out and the thickness of the pillars you probably can't see through them from the front anyway, just fill them in as part of the pillar or something.

[stn-vtr]

Leave my car alone! I like the rear end slab of stuff 'n bits 'n wings 'n things and whatever the vents on the front wings do. It does make me feel a little self concious but what the hell, your a long time dead!

[J4CKO]

Speed addicted said:

cb1965 said:

Zod said:

The first CLS was an ugly thing. It looked like a banana. The current one is horrible too.

Well it was nowhere as near as bad as the current one, but yes it's not to my taste. It always seemed a bit pointless to me. There's not much headroom in the back, the interior feels like a very cramped place to be given the size of the car and even with Merc's woeful visual designs there were better looking similarly sized cars in the range.

I think if you want to look like an apprentice drug dealer, bouncer or footballer's agent then it's a good choice other than that get a proper car

To be honest I really like the early CLS design, it was ruined in the facelift though. Most modern Mercedes just look like over designed and blinged up tat.

The later one lost what was good about the original, a marmite car though, I have always loved the first one, hence why I bought one when they eventually fell into my price range, I could learn to love a new shape cls 63 though.

[boxedin]

rehab71 said:

The handbrake in many early '00s VAG product that fouled on the armrest!!!! How the fk did it get signed off? (Picture from Google)

IIRC modern Polos still suffer from this.

[stewart rix]

I've never been keen on the Bangle BM 'flourishes'. Drooping line down the side of an early Z4 suggests the sill has rusted through an collapsed.

[Hugh Jarse]

EnglishTony said:

Vergis said:

Why did Mercedes have to trace the curves of a Porsche 911 rear to compete with the same market. Kills the all the styling cues of the front of the car. If you cover the bonnet the resemblance to a 911 is uncanny.

Try and sell the Germans a luxury performance 2 door car that doesn't look like a Porsche from behind.

Did the hand thing and it totally works as a 911 at 80% reduce.
Try the hand thing just showing the front.........
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFQu2HgDTwQ

[Gad-Westy]

It's easy to forget that the Mk1 Focus dashboard design was quite ground breaking in terms of introducing a bit of shape and drama to the interior. Admirable stuff. But why on earth did they have to buy the clock from Casio? It looked seriously naff at the time, let alone 20 odd years later.

[anonymous-user]

Speed addicted said:

To be honest I really like the early CLS design, it was ruined in the facelift though. Most modern Mercedes just look like over designed and blinged up tat.

I don't like the early design, but that is personal preference, it's not because it's design aesthetics wise bad, quite the opposite. The later cars like nearly all the Merc range these days is a complete mess from a design point of view.

[patmahe]

stewart rix said:

I've never been keen on the Bangle BM 'flourishes'. Drooping line down the side of an early Z4 suggests the sill has rusted through an collapsed.

Under Bangle's influence

5 series went from this

to this

The only reason this car seems even remotely acceptable these days is because its everywhere, but thats mainly down to the prestige of the badge, if a Korean manufacturer had build exactly this, they would have sold about 5 of them.

7 series went from this

to this


In my opinion a design mistake the company is still living with to this day. As a former owner of an E34 and an E39 BMW 5 series I can honestly say I lost interest in their products around this time and nothing I have seen so far is enticing me back.

[RobEB]

Hate the front end on this

[Blown2CV]

rehab71 said:

The handbrake in many early '00s VAG product that fouled on the armrest!!!! How the fk did it get signed off? (Picture from Google)

That... is hanging. Is that your car?! ETA you did say it wasn't, sorry i missed that. Was too mesmerised by the ming!

Edited by Blown2CV on Friday 20th May 09:33

[Blown2CV]

carl_w said:

Blown2CV said:

i am guessing it could be that stones get picked up in the wheels, moving clockwise clearly, then by chance are thrown off the wheel surface vertically right into a slat, which is just at the right angle to cause a ricochet straight at the windscreen.... dunno. Stones are pretty common on our roads...

Or anticlockwise, depending on which side of the car you're looking at A ricochet against fibreglass will cause a massive loss in energy for the stone.

The angles involved make me suspect it's not the case. I reckon you'd be more likely to put stones through the slats driving in reverse. I guess the acid test is if some Saggy owners can show us the back edge of their slats covered in stone pits, or not.

fair point on the clock-direction!! Brainfart moment. Interesting theory, would you describe yourself as a sagaris slash truther?!

[FredClogs]

boxedin said:

rehab71 said:

The handbrake in many early '00s VAG product that fouled on the armrest!!!! How the fk did it get signed off? (Picture from Google)

IIRC modern Polos still suffer from this.

If you read the handbook you'll find that VW categorically say that the arm rest is not to be used whilst driving the vehicle, quite odd that they put it next to the drivers seat really.

[thegreenhell]

85Carrera said:

PS - presumably you (a) would put a Union Jack on the roof of a Datsun Cherry/ whatever they are churning out in Sunderland now and (b) try to categorise the Slough-built Citroen DS's as English as opposed to French, which shows how ridiculous your argument supporting MINIs with union jacks is

No, the correct analogue in those instances would be if a British firm bought Nissan or Citroen. If that happened would you consider Japanese-built Nissans or French-built Citroens to be British cars, just because of the new corporate ownership of the company, or still Japanese and French? The Union Jack thing is purely a matter of taste, but to think of MINIs as not being British is ridiculous.

[Gad-Westy]

FredClogs said:

boxedin said:

rehab71 said:

The handbrake in many early '00s VAG product that fouled on the armrest!!!! How the fk did it get signed off? (Picture from Google)

IIRC modern Polos still suffer from this.

If you read the handbook you'll find that VW categorically say that the arm rest is not to be used whilst driving the vehicle, quite odd that they put it next to the drivers seat really.

Presumably it was easier to change the handbook than the design after they realised the error feature.

[shakotan]

PartsMonkey said:

The position and styling of the rear lamp units on the latest Mercedes C-Class. The fact there is a strip of metal between the boot lid and the lamp annoys the hell out of me. Why didn't they make the boot 20mm wider each side or make the tail lights slightly bigger. It reminds me of the lamp transplants that were ever so popular among the Max Power fraternity at the turn of the century. It just looks like such a bodge!



Maybe they are harking back to the C140 Merc from the 90's which had a very similar arrangement

The S-coupe always bugged me with the taillights not joining the boot lid. The never did it on the saloon, so why on the coupe?

[shakotan]

patmahe said:

stewart rix said:

I've never been keen on the Bangle BM 'flourishes'. Drooping line down the side of an early Z4 suggests the sill has rusted through an collapsed.

Under Bangle's influence

5 series went from this

to this

The only reason this car seems even remotely acceptable these days is because its everywhere, but thats mainly down to the prestige of the badge, if a Korean manufacturer had build exactly this, they would have sold about 5 of them.

7 series went from this

to this


In my opinion a design mistake the company is still living with to this day. As a former owner of an E34 and an E39 BMW 5 series I can honestly say I lost interest in their products around this time and nothing I have seen so far is enticing me back.

I actually like the E60, and although the E65 is a bit fussy the facelift put right all the things I didn't like - such as the headlights cutting into the front bumper, and the horizontal strip containing the reverse lamps on the bootlid.

[Jader1973]

wildcat45 said:

shakotan said:

The awkward cramming in of the leaping cat and 'Jaguar' badges on the XF bootlid.

I get eye twitches every time I'm behind one in traffic.

Jaguar badges annoy me. I understand why they want to retain the leaping cat but can't have a proper one on the bonnet.

What's needed here is the Jaguar "Growler" badge - the cat face-on. It's small and round like the one on the front. Actually much better to lose the back badge and just have the "Jaguar" script. If you must have the leaping cat profile, miniaturise it and whack it on the wings, B post or somewhere and offer it as a o-cost delete option.

Agree. The leaper on the back just looks wrong because it isn't symmetrical. It spoils the car.

[rodericb]

Icehanger said:

latest C class, it was a serious WTF moment when I realised the exhaust trims don't even have any holes in them...**shivers**

Ha ha, man they look so dumb. This sort of stuff reminds me of the rice burner thing a few years ago. Vacuous know-nothing types who just see the object but are clueless to why it is (well, was...) there.

[jazzdude]

Where do you start with these two?
Toyota WILL

and the..


Toyota WILL Cypha